Lichtenfelser invents reusable coffee capsules for enjoyment with a clear conscience
162 liters of coffee the german burgers drink on average per year. In addition to filter coffee machines, capsule machines such as those from nespresso are becoming increasingly popular. The colorful aluminum capsules look great, but they are not environmentally friendly. That’s what jurgen muller from muller mechanik gmbh in mistelfeld thought. He has thought about it and found an environmentally friendly solution.
They actually manufacture vibratory finishing machines for deburring and polishing in their company. How did you come up with the idea for capseco reusable coffee capsules??
Jurgen muller: i followed the development of coffee capsules in the media and was shocked at how much gauze they produced. I was looking for a solution to this problem. I think this is a very important topic and that we are also obliged to ensure that our nature is preserved.
How difficult was it to develop and produce the reusable capsules??
It was really a lot of work. I underestimated this at the beginning. The first thing I did was to buy a capsule coffee maker and disassemble it. It was very important for me to understand how the milling process works and what shape the capsules have to be. I also planned and built the injection molds used to make the capsules myself. It would have been far too expensive to have the whole thing produced by an outside company. And since I have the machines for it, I could make everything myself. For the production of capseco, I bought injection molding machines to make the capsules myself. Production is much more difficult than is generally assumed. I had to acquire some knowledge here. How long did it take to make the coffee capsules?? The whole thing took about two and a half years. Especially finding the right material for the soft component was not easy. The material the capsules are made of is similar to that of a baby’s pacifier. Extensive testing and migration tests confirm its safety and let me sleep well at night. The capsules are silicone- and latex-free and contain neither plasticizers nor bisphenol A. The filter sieve was another challenge. Now 177 aroma pores make for great coffee. It really took hundreds of tries until our capseco was ready.
They spent a lot of their free time tinkering with the project. Wasn’t it a strain on the family life??
That was no problem at all. I am lucky that my company is in our house. When my family was still sitting outside in the evening in good weather, I would sit down with them from time to time and later continue working with some new ideas. And the whole thing wouldn’t have been possible without the family connection either. Everyone has helped, my wife, my two daughters and even my mother have pitched in and contributed their ideas. It’s really a product that we stand behind together.
A coffee usually has to be ready quickly. It takes a long time to fill the coffee capsules?
This was of course a very important point. With one of the initial prototypes, my wife said that the filling is still too complicated and makes too much mess. The solution was the filling aid in the supply tin: put the capsule in, fill it, simply wipe off the rest of the coffee, put the sieve on it and you’re done. It is maybe ten seconds. Cleaning is just as easy: you squeeze the capsule at the back and the sieve comes out. After you have printed out the coffee grounds, just give them a quick rinse and that’s it. With the filling aid, you don’t even have to dry it off, you can use it again right away. And besides packaging waste you also save money. One nespresso capsule costs about 41 cents. Depending on what kind of coffee you take, you get nine cents with our reusable capseco.
What makes capseco so special?
In any case, it is environmentally friendly and reusable and therefore saves a lot of gauze. For me, too, only a reusable product came into question. There are now several suppliers of disposable capsules that advertise biodegradability. But they are all disposable products. Many capsules that are labeled biodegradable are usually only biodegradable under special conditions. As a rule, however, these capsules are sorted out and incinerated in composting plants.
If you use capseco, you can suddenly make your coffee very efficiently and in an environmentally friendly way with a capsule machine, which is normally very polluting with all the pulp.
